Book: Being No One

[Russell Nash]

I presume that you and me, and everyone here, is after the truth. Perhaps not the ultimate truth but another assumption that we might hold as truer for more years, another assumption that explains what we observe better. I'm not a big denier, and as you can see there are others who do not accept Metzinger's theory, and this people are not precisely ignorant deniers, most of them are well educated, having degrees that are hard to obtain. A few other deniers I could easily found were:

http://cfs.ku.dk/staff/zahavi-public...metzinger.pdf/

--Documents

--Documents

By the way, you still didn't answer my question: After 30 years of neural programming, can you show me a neural network that memorizes a simple song, "Yesterday" by Paul Mc Cartney, the same way we do?

Quote Originally Posted by Tsalal XIII

Quote Originally Posted by Russell Nash My question is, according to Metzinger's theory of self, is l... the same self before and after the accident? As far as I understand this theory, a single "self" can never be identical at any two moments in time, simply because there is no such thing as a static self. And I don't mean it just in Heraclitus' sense ("You cannot step twice into the same river.") - self model is a dynamic process, ever changing representation constanlty updated by all accessible input from various subsystems of the brian processing proprioception, vision (senses, generally), emotions, and yes, of course, memory.

According to her family, l... was the same person, the same l..., after and before the accident. Her memory didn't have any major influence in her behavior. Of course, this is not a scientific study. To give a definite viewpoint, we should have her exact behavior after and before, and verify both data. We certainly can't have it. We don't have EEGs or anything. And we also cannot base our theory on a single case, but I'm sure that if you are interested in truth, not only in Metzinger's viewpoint, you would be able to find more examples of amnesics somewhere else in the internet. L... is a real example taken from the real world. And all this "you cannot step twice in the same river" seems not to be her case. If Metzinger cannot make a simple prediction, he should be more cautious in what he states.

I'm not a big denier, I read a lot, I talk a lot, I observe a lot. Only what resists any kind of critique along many years is what I accept to be a solid assumption. But I don't deny for the sake of denying. Neither do I believe for the sake of believing.

It's interesting, though, that certain cases, such as Phineas Gage, have changed due to a severe brain damage. A doctor describing him after the accident said:

The equilibrium or balance, so to speak, between his intellectual faculties and animal propensities, seems to have been destroyed. He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, devising many plans of future operations, which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned in turn for others appearing more feasible. A child in his intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man. Previous to his injury, although untrained in the schools, he possessed a well-balanced mind, and was looked upon by those who knew him as a shrewd, smart businessman, very energetic and persistent in executing all his plans of operation. In this regard his mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was "no longer Gage."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

[Acutely decayed]

Quote Originally Posted by Russell Nash

I presume that you and me, and everyone here, is after the truth. Perhaps not the ultimate truth but another assumption that we might hold as truer for more years, another assumption that explains what we observe better.

wandering off topic, or perhaps not, I came across this quote by Machen accidentally and within minutes of reading the above post.

"Let it not be supposed that I desire in any way to sneer at science. There are excellent souls whose vocation it is to know all about stamens and pistils, the geology of Snowdon, the date of the second Reform Bill, and the name of King Alfred's grandmother. Mankind is infinitely curious, even about trifles, and I would not have it otherwise. What I want to make clear is that these trifles are no affair of literature or painting or any of the arts. Art is not concerned with true things-the particular-but with the truth-the universal-which is but another aspect of Beauty."

I thought it might be wise to share at this point that the above is not a sentiment I disagree with, in fact i think it is beautiful and beautifully expressed. Trifles may be too harsh an expression as science has such practical use in the alleviation of suffering but I think you get the drift...

I also think that the beauty may be a very personal experience, so universal is not necessarily the word I would use...

Where my thoughts on the matter are conflicted is in the area of "Evolutionary Aesthetics" and such concepts as those expressed in Brian Stablefords work (PS Publishing - Black Wings - download - story freely available). Which are partly based on the experience of beauty (which I am using as a catch all word for the terrible/sublime feeling in great weird fiction also) being genetically or physically determined.

I like his novel "Young Blood" also, looking at virally generated conciousness.

I would not disagree with these ideas either - without going into all the data here, the theories behind them seem potentially valid to me.

Great Apologies for the digression. I will look at the references provided by both above posters.

[Tsalal XIII]

Dear Alberto,
First of all I must say that I officially resign from the position of Metzinger's advocate. I am not a neuroscientist or neurologist - I am a philosophy graduate, and most of my knowledge on human brain comes simply from popular science books. I don't have an answer to the criticism of Metzingers work, nor can I tell you if there is a "neural network that memorizes a simple song, "Yesterday" by Paul Mc Cartney, the same way we do" simply because I never really studied neural networks or went that deep into neuroanatomy (although lately I try to educate my self in that field as well).
I appreciate Metzinger's work because it made me look at myself (and whole of my experience actually) from a totaly new perspective, and I must say I really enjoy such revolutions in my personal life.
Of course there is a lot of controversy around Metzinger's work - if there wasn't, that just would prove that he is not treated seriously by scientific community. Every paradigm-changing idea must meet strong opposition - I'm sure you are very well aware of that. I would love to read Metzinger's answer to some of that criticism, but the only such paper that I am aware of is in Collapse vol. V, to which unfortunately I have no access.
Cognitive science is of course very a young branch of science and there are still far more mysteries than answers (we still haven't found any solution to some very fundamental problems), so naturally any theory about the brain must be very general and only make a framework for a further research - and that's exactly what Metzinger's theory is. Metzinger's intention is not to give an all-explaining description of the brain's architecture - that not what philosophers do. He only proposed the general direction in which further research could advance, a set of testable hypothesis - some of which been found already found true and others still wait for testing.

Returning to the case of l... you described - as you noted, we do not know what her family actually meant by 'behavior'. For example, if she had no memory of the place she lived at, that very fact must have influenced her behavior - she couldn't easily navigate her own environment. So behavior naturally must have changed - I infer that what you meant is actually character? Well, tell me then what exactly was the damage to the brain? Many different parts of the brain are involved in storage and retrieval of the memory - for example, it is possible that the the place where her seemingly lost memories were stored remained intact, but the part responsible for conscious retrieval of that information was damaged - yet it still remained available for other subsystems of the brain. Were all the memories erased so that she had to learn about whole reality from the scratch? Not very likely, memory loss usually affects certain types of memories, like short or long termed, associations, emotional memories, etc. - even though after stoke you may not recognize yourself in the mirror anymore, you may still know how to use things, talk in language, etc. Did she have any problems in learning new things or gaining new memories? Could she recognize people or places? If we don't have answers to such questions, it will always be dealing with far too great generalization to make any sense of this discussion.

Phineas Cage's case you mentioned is probably one of the most famous cases in history (his skull is displayed at museum, etc), but had nothing to do with the memory. 2-inch thick iron spike that pierced his skull damaged his frontal lobes (responsible for higher functions), impairing his ability of foreseeing long-term consequences of his actions. Parts responsible for memory storage were actually intact.
If you are interested in the way damage to the brain influences behavior, there are really lots of fascinating publications, of which the most famous is probably

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The_Man_Who_Mistook_His_Wife_for_a_Hat

by Olivier Sachs - a real classic. There is also a very interesting document on YouTube -

Part 1 - Phantoms In The Brain (Episode 1) - YouTube

- big recomendation.

[Russell Nash]

Quote Originally Posted by Tsalal XIII

[...]nor can I tell you if there is a "neural network that memorizes a simple song, "Yesterday" by Paul Mc Cartney, the same way we do" simply because I never really studied neural networks or went that deep into neuroanatomy (although lately I try to educate my self in that field as well).

Neural networks explain how the brain "might" memorize pictures or static data (numbers or letters), of course, nobody would affirm that the brain actually works exactly like these networks predict. Besides, the model of programming neurons may even be too simple. You know, there are biochemical processes that cannot be put on paper yet (with the perfection required). It is too early too give a definite opinion.

Neural networks fail to memorize continuous data, like songs, or video. It is easy to understand how we storage data on HDDs, but not on neural networks. According to weights (numerical values) spread through neurons we are able to retrieve pictures (remember you may say) with part of the original information but a song is continuous data that cannot be stored through neurons. However, we are getting closer to have a better understanding of how we memorize music.

(June, 2010)
Music and lyrics: How the brain splits songs - life - 09 March 2010 - New Scientist

(March, 2010)
How does the human brain memorize a sound?

These two articles just show how new the information is. If we had this same conversation last year we would not reach any conclusion, not we know a little bit more. I could say that within a century (or this is just my hope) we would definitely know how we memorize songs, and we are going to be able to reproduce it with neural networks or another language programming.

There are some who claim that certain people after having a lung transplant, also have memories of the donor. They talk of some kind of cellular memory, claiming that not all memory might be stored in our brains. I doubt it, but the correct procedure is to keep observing, and see if Nature still has surprises or if these cases can be explained with other easy to understand explanations and not supernatural ones.

Quote Originally Posted by Tsalal XIII

Returning to the case of l... you described - as you noted, we do not know what her family actually meant by 'behavior'. For example, if she had no memory of the place she lived at, that very fact must have influenced her behavior - she couldn't easily navigate her own environment. So behavior naturally must have changed - I infer that what you meant is actually character?

Yes, that's the problem. Unless we know what we mean by self we cannot tell. Are we memory? Behavior? Personality? Something else? In her case, she behaved the same, but was she? I don't know but these cases should be analyzed, I presumed they are, and while we wait for the results, we still may enjoy philosophical discussions.

[Russell Nash]

I found this book on the internet, "Self-Discovery" by Vladimir Savchenko. It's online, at

Vladimir Savchenko. Self-discovery

It might be an interesting book, who knows?

The introduction starts with, "Are you one self or many selves?"

[Tsalal XIII]

I never heard of that book or the author, but that question - "Are you one self or many selves?" immediately reminds me of G. I. Gurdjieff. This will probably get very off-topic, but I allow myself to paste certain interesting passages from "In Search of the Miraculous" by his pupil, P. D. Ouspensky:

Quote

"One of man's important mistakes," he [Gurdjieff] said, "one which must be remembered, is his illusion in regard to his I. "Man such as we know him, the 'man-machine,' the man who cannot 'do,' and with whom and through whom everything 'happens,' cannot have a permanent and single I. His I changes as quickly as his thoughts, feelings, and moods, and he makes a profound mistake in considering himself always one and the same person; in reality he is always a different person, not the one he was a moment ago. "Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation, says 'I.' And in each case it seems to be taken for granted that this I belongs to the Whole, to the whole man, and that a thought, a desire, or an aversion is expressed by this Whole. In actual fact there is no foundation whatever for this assumption. Man's every thought and desire appears and lives quite separately and independently of the Whole. And the Whole never expresses itself, for the simple reason that it exists, as such, only physically as a thing, and in the abstract as a concept. Man has no individual I. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small I's, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking 'I.' And each time his I is different. Just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man's name is legion." "The alternation of I's, their continual obvious struggle for supremacy, is controlled by accidental external influences. Warmth, sunshine, fine weather, immediately call up a whole group of I's. Cold, fog, rain, call up another group of I's, other associations, other feelings, other actions. There is nothing in man able to control this change of I's, chiefly because "Man has no individuality. He has no single, big I. Man is divided into a multiplicity of small I's. "And each separate small I is able to call itself by the name of the Whole, to act in the name of the Whole, to agree or disagree, to give promises, to make decisions, with which another I or the Whole will have to deal. This explains why people so often make decisions and so seldom carry them out. A man decides to get up early beginning from the following day. One I, or a group of I's, decide this. But getting up is the business of another I who entirely disagrees with the decision and may even know absolutely nothing about it. Of course the man will again go on sleeping in the morning and in the evening he will again decide to get up early. In some cases this may assume very unpleasant consequences for a man. A small accidental I may promise something, not to itself, but to someone else at a certain moment simply out of vanity or for amusement. Then it disappears, but the man, that is, the whole combination of other I's who are quite innocent of this, may have to pay for it all his life. It is the tragedy of the human being that any small I has the right to sign checks and promissory notes and the man, that is, the Whole, has to meet them. People's whole lives often consist in paying off the promissory notes of small accidental I's. (...) "Man has no individuality. He has no single, big I. Man is divided into a multiplicity of small I's. "And each separate small I is able to call itself by the name of the Whole, to act in the name of the Whole, to agree or disagree, to give promises, to make decisions, with which another I or the Whole will have to deal. This explains why people so often make decisions and so seldom carry them out. A man decides to get up early beginning from the following day. One I, or a group of I's, decide this. But getting up is the business of another I who entirely disagrees with the decision and may even know absolutely nothing about it. Of course the man will again go on sleeping in the morning and in the evening he will again decide to get up early. In some cases this may assume very unpleasant consequences for a man. A small accidental I may promise something, not to itself, but to someone else at a certain moment simply out of vanity or for amusement. Then it disappears, but the man, that is, the whole combination of other I's who are quite innocent of this, may have to pay for it all his life. It is the tragedy of the human being that any small I has the right to sign checks and promissory notes and the man, that is, the Whole, has to meet them. People's whole lives often consist in paying off the promissory notes of small accidental I's."

[Acutely decayed]

I purchased "The Ego Tunnel" but I am reading Wegners "The Illusion of Conscious Will" (via library) before starting it, so do not yet have an informed opinion on the PSM. (I am sure Wegners book would have been mentioned here before).

Wegner has a very wry dry humor, some of the figure legends are classic, I decided to read the book as in this thread:

http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10724

Bakker mentioned it caused him to be depressed for months, sort of an anti-recommendation.

I find the experience of reading this book is like being repeatedly punched in the head whilst intermittently served canapes and one-liners from an eloquent pugilist.

I know there are criticisms of Wegners findings around, but will finish the book and then move onto them.

[Russell Nash]

Is memory stored (entirely) in the brain?

Before you laugh at my question, consider that there are some cases where people after having heart or lung transplants believe that they behave differently. Also, Sheldrake affirms that memory is not stored in the brain. If you still laugh, please, read these links and make a comment.

THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2008 Page 1

"Like many scientists in the field of memory, I used to think that a memory is something stored in the brain and then accessed when used. Then, in 2000, a researcher in my lab, Karim Nader, did an experiment that convinced me, and many others, that our usual way of thinking was wrong. In a nutshell, what Karim showed was that each time a memory is used, it has to be restored as a new memory in order to be accessible later. The old memory is either not there or is inaccessible. In short, your memory about something is only as good as your last memory about it. This is why people who witness crimes testify about what they read in the paper rather than what they witnessed. Research on this topic, called reconsolidation, has become the basis of a possible treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, drug addiction, and any other disorder that is based on learning.

That Karim's study changed my mind is clear from the fact that I told him, when he proposed to do the study, that it was a waste of time. I'm not swayed by arguments based on faith, can be moved by good logic, but am always swayed by a good experiment, even if it goes against my scientific beliefs. I might not give up on a scientific belief after one experiment, but when the evidence mounts over multiple studies, I change my mind." Joseph Ledoux, Neuroscientist, New York University; Author, The Synaptic Self

Sign in to read: Memories may be stored on your DNA - life - 02 December 2008 - New Scientist

Does Memory Reside Outside the Brain? | Epoch Times

And this is a good article about memory

--Documents

The fact that we don't know how memory works, or why mice whose brains have been mutilated by scientists by 50% and still remember the same thing, or how a neural system can remember a simple song, and many other questions I have, make think that the idea that "memory is stored (or stored entirely) in the brain" is just an assumption. That there is no proof of it. Why not? If it's so simple to understand?

[G. S. Carnivals]

Quote Originally Posted by Russell Nash

The fact that we don't know how memory works, or why mice whose brains have been mutilated by scientists by 50% and still remember the same thing, or how a neural system can remember a simple song, and many other questions I have, make think that the idea that "memory is stored (or stored entirely) in the brain" is just an assumption. That there is no proof of it. Why not? If it's so simple to understand?

Thank you, Alberto. You have inspired a Quirk Classic:

"Think Blue, Count Two Flowers for Algernon" by Cordwainer Smith and Daniel Keyes.

[gveranon]

Interesting. This stuff sounds like pseudoscience to me, but that may be an unreasonable prejudice on my part. I read recently that Rupert Sheldrake was an influence on W. G. Sebald. In Sebald's novels, the past intrudes on the present in an uncanny and almost physical way, especially in the vicinity of certain places and objects. Another novelist who comes to mind is Robert Holdstock. In Holdstock's Ryhope Wood series, ancestral mythic figures and landscapes are unintentionally conjured into being by the minds of people who live nearby. Sebald and Holdstock: two great writers who are no longer with us . . . or maybe they are, in some sense, still with us!